Due to the recent explosion of identity theft cases, the safeguarding of private data has been the focus of many scientific efforts. Private data include medical data. Medical data contain a number of sensitive attributes that should only be disclosed to authorized personnel. In the years to come, healthcare systems are expected to experience a drastic change in its structure and organization as indicated, for example, in the Healthcare 2015 report showing that governments, health regions, hospitals and healthcare providers are allotting billions of dollars into multiple medical initiatives. One very important effort is the creation of electronic health records (EHR's). As the volume of health care data increases, more complex, storage and accessibility of medical information is not only invaluable but also necessary. The long-term goal for electronic health records is to make patient data readily available to health care providers such as hospitals and emergency personnel in a secure platform. Disasters, for example, Hurricane Katrina, have shown the practical utility of being able to store and retrieve information such as prescription histories and dosages electronically in an emergency.
One of the major technological and ethical issues governing electronic records is the issue of data privacy. Protection from unauthorized access on medical history data and personal patient data is something that can not only protect a patient's private data from identity theft schemes but can also can safeguard the healthcare and insurance system from fraudulent claims.